1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toy for animals which is designed to encourage sedentary pets to be active, and more particularly, to a novel improvement to attract pets attention over a long period by chaotically controlling the movement of an amusing movable object.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 3 shows the configuration of a conventional toy for animals.
In FIG. 3, a pedestal 1 has a built-in motor 2 for controlling electrical driving. This motor 2 has a rotary shaft 2A arranged in a vertical direction. Additionally, a flexible rod 3 which is 10 to 30 cm long is connected to this rotary shaft 2A. The rod 3 is bent nearly at a right angle, and is provided with a movable object 4 in the shape of, for example, a mouse at the tip thereof.
Moreover, in order to make the apparent movement of the movable object 4 complex, the rod 3 is constituted of a rigid material at a base portion and a flexible material at a tip portion thereof, depending on the toy.
In such a conventional toy for pets, when the motor 2 is rotated, the movable object 4 rotates on a plane where the pedestal 1 is installed. Thus, animals such as cats show interest and chase the movable object 4, thus allowing sedentary pets to exercise without human assistance.
With the above-noted configuration, the conventional toy has the following problems. Specifically, since the movement of the movable object 4 is limited to the range on the plane where the pedestal 1 is installed, the movement is only two-dimensional and is unlikely to repeatedly attract the attention animals over a long period.
Moreover, the rotation of the movable object 4 has a pattern, so that pets quickly lose interest.
Further, even if the movable object 4 is rotated chaotically, the movement of the movable object 4 is only two-dimensional as mentioned above, and thus will not attract animals repeatedly or over a long period. The method of providing chaotic movement to the movable object 4 is also unclear.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a toy for animals that can sufficiently amuse pets by achieving three-dimensional and chaotic movement of a movable object, thus solving the above-noted problems.
The toy for animals of the present invention includes a rotating unit, which is provided so as to allow an axis of rotation to be angled with respect to the vertical direction; a first rod having a base portion connected coaxially with the axis of rotation and a tip portion bent with respect to the base portion; a second rod, which is connected to the tip portion of the first rod and has enough flexibility to be deflected from the longitudinal direction; and a movable object mounted to the tip of the second rod with a string material, and is controlled so that the movable object is moved chaotically in the vertical and horizontal directions within a three-dimensional space around the rotating unit by chaotically rotating the axis of rotation of the rotating unit in an arbitrary rotating direction. Moreover, the rotating unit may be provided so as to allow the axis of rotation to have an elevation angle of 45xc2x0 to 80xc2x0 with respect to the horizontal direction. The first rod may also be bent so as to to be angled of 150xc2x0 to 170xc2x0 between the tip portion and the base portion. Additionally, the chaotic rotation of the rotating unit may be achieved by dividing signal levels of an original signal into a first area, a second area and a third area so as to convert the original signal into digital data, and using chaos data in which the digital data is converted so as to make a left rotation, a stop and a right rotation when the signal level of the original signal is in the first area, the second area and the third area, respectively. Moreover, the second area may have a width of 100 to 700 ms. Furthermore, the toy for animals may further include a pedestal having an angle adjusting arm, and the rotating unit may be built in a housing which is mounted on the tip of the arm.